


The Teriyaki Summit

by Lemur710



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: 2x10 coda, F/M, Gen, M/M, parabaTRI, parabrotai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 20:28:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11215692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lemur710/pseuds/Lemur710
Summary: “Hm. This is like a little reunion, isn’t it?” Magnus said, quirking a smile.A ParabaTRI (Luke, Magnus and Alec) coda for 2x10 “By the Light of Dawn”





	The Teriyaki Summit

**Author's Note:**

> I felt dissatisfied by how the show left Luke’s story after 2x10 “By the Light of Dawn.” I wanted to explore that emotional terrain, and revisit the always awesome Parabatri. This was written after the airing of 2x12 “You Are Not Your Own.” I mention that because everything in this story might be completely negated by canon to come! 
> 
> This story kinda references [Binding Spell](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8240863), but it still makes sense without reading that one (since that one just expands on the events of 1x06).

Loss has a flavor that tailors itself to each tongue.

For 12-year-old Alec Lightwood, it was a rich chocolate mousse that felt heavy in his mouth beneath his mother’s admonishing glare. The Lightwoods were guests at an important Clave wedding and Alec was paying too much attention to the Rookwoods’ son Daniel. The sort of attention, with a flutter in his stomach, that Alec didn’t fully understand yet. But as he silently ate his mousse and tried to sit tall in his mother’s eyes, he knew it was wrong. Whatever he was, it was wrong.

For Magnus Bane, barely 10 years into a life that would last thousands, before he even knew the name he’d call his own, it was ripe jackfruit left out by an old grandmother who had noticed the dirty little boy hiding in the trees. Hunger drove him near when her back was turned. She had stayed turned away so she wouldn’t startle him and cooed, “You can come in, little one. Where is your mama, little one?” but Magnus never answered and never went in. He couldn’t bear to see another woman’s kind eyes fill with revulsion.

For Lucian Graymark, it was the bland mealiness of a soldier’s ration mixed with the metallic tang of blood from a split lip. It was the realization, between one bite and the next as he hunkered down between one battle and the next, that this war could have been prevented. That _he_ could have prevented it. His own parabatai had done this. They had been on the side of wrong from the start. Guilt burnt out his hunger. He could have stopped this. He could have stopped this. But he hadn’t.

Loss has a flavor.

________

The cushioned booths at the Jade Wolf had become field cots, cradling those who had managed to survive the massacre at the Institute. Cuts and bruises mostly, but two had taken serious damage. Serious, but they would heal.

Luke winced, knees twinging as he stood from his crouch beside Segan, who had finally fallen asleep. Pain lanced through him from the wound in his side, but he gritted his teeth and stayed silent. “Keep an eye on them, will you?” he asked Maia. She sat nearby with a worn Bronte novel in hand, looking far too worn for her years. “I’m gonna go get the medicine from Magnus. Call me if anything comes up.”

Maia nodded mutely and looked back to her book. She seemed to be staring through the page more than reading it. 

He passed Russell and Greg on his way out. Their glares spoke for them, even if his wolf’s hearing hadn’t allowed him to catch their whispered conversation. They didn’t like him. They didn’t trust him. They thought he’d messed up tonight. Luke wasn’t sure he disagreed.

Just the same, he held their stares, rigid and unyielding, facing the challenge in their eyes. He knew what it meant to be an Alpha.

The gravel outside shifted beneath his boots, the sort of surface that made you lose a little ground with every step you took forward. He squinted into the afternoon sun. It was later in the day than he’d realized.

Somewhere, a chain clinked against a pillar on the docks. The wet, musty smell of fish blew in on sea breezes with the honking horns and growling engines of the city’s distant traffic. Cargo ships lurked in the harbor, their propellers churning as smoke belched and grinded from their gears.

There was a time, Luke remembered, when he’d stood in the sun and green of Idris. There was a time he’d felt sure of his place in the world. 

He pulled out his cellphone. Recent calls—Alaric, Maia, Russell, Reid. It was a full page down before he found Simon and Clary. His thumb hovered over her name, hesitating. It used to be easy to call her. He used to do it without even thinking, a quick call to ask what she wanted on her pizza or if a latte would help her “find inspiration” for her latest art project. He’d thought, once the truth was out in the open, all the walls would fall. Clary would know him for who he was. She would know who he had been to her father, and how deeply he’d loved her mother. She would look him in the eyes and see him for everything he was.

But now, it was easier to just slide his phone back in his pocket. Clary was safe and unharmed. She was with Simon, Jace, and the Lightwoods. She was with her people, with Shadowhunters. It was a life he’d wanted her to know, but it had taken her where he could not follow. 

The gravel crunched under his footsteps and Detective Luke Garroway climbed into his car, wishing, not for the first time, that something in him would let him drive away and leave the world to its fate. But it never did. Every battle still felt like his battle.

He turned the ignition and the police radio crackled to life, patrol reports of suspicious persons or suspected break-ins or traffic accidents, the atmospheric noise of human existence. Luke shut it off. Just for the drive. For the drive to Magnus’s, he would be Luke, just another man driving on the streets of New York. No one’s Alpha, or soldier, or detective, or surrogate father. Just for the drive. He turned the radio to an old blues station. His wheels spun on the gravel before they caught traction and he left the Jade Wolf behind.

________

Luke knocked once on the sleek black door, then pushed it open. “Magnus?” he called. The foyer stretched out before him, empty save for the dusty books and intimidating detritus of a busy warlock.

“In here.”

The voice had come from the library. Luke nudged the front door shut behind him and walked the few steps, rounding the corner to find Magnus amongst his herbs and bottles. Luke hadn’t checked a mirror in a while, but from Magnus’s expression, he figured he must not look very good. 

“Have you slept?” Magnus asked, red-polished fingers poised on a small jar filled with dried leaves. 

“They sedated me at the Institute,” Luke replied with a shrug, and Magnus’s brow twitched just a fraction before he continued working. It was the sort of reaction Luke knew he wouldn’t have noticed back when he was a Shadowhunter. “Got enough there for two poultices?”

“Enough for three, just in case.” Magnus screwed the lid on tight and shook up the ingredients before handing it over. “Just add water,” he said.

“Thanks. Trying to keep the guys comfortable. The ones that made it.” He reached for his wallet in his back pocket. His wounded side screamed out and he grimaced before he could stop himself.

“Were you hurt?”

“Valentine got me.” He pulled out several twenties, counting through them as he waited for the radiating pain to fade. “It’s fine.” Even he knew he didn’t sound fine. 

“Why haven’t you healed?” Magnus took the money, but his dark eyes glittered with concern. It was still a surprise sometimes, how kind Magnus Bane was. They didn’t really know each other that well. “I could help. On the house.”

“Really, it’s okay. He must’ve put something on the blade, it’s just taking a while.” Luke gingerly pressed a palm to his side. “Guess he was ready for me.” As he said it, he felt a strange flutter in his chest, some youthful, naive stirring like when he was a boy and a pretty girl would smile at him. Maybe his old parabatai still thought of him all the time, too. Maybe, at least in that, they were equally cursed.

“Let me look at it,” Magnus said, his voice doubled by another saying, “Let him look at it.”

Alec Lightwood stepped out of Magnus’s bedroom barefoot, fixing his t-shirt over his black jeans. Luke nodded a greeting. Seemed like Magnus and Alec had done exactly what a couple should after the world almost ended.

“You should let him look at it,” Alec said again. “He could help.”

Magnus shrugged at Luke, ringed hands spread wide. “With the pain, if nothing else.”

Luke looked between the two of them and then sighed. “All right.” He set the jar down and slid his jacket from his shoulders. “But I need to get back to the pack.”

“I’ll be as quick as I can.” Magnus gestured Luke toward the couch. 

Tossing his shirt aside, Luke settled against the throw pillows. Magnus crouched beside him and tugged carefully on the edges of the bandage fastened neatly to his abdomen. The skin pulled, the edges raw and aching. Blue smoke ghosted from Magnus’s palms, dulling the pain, then removing it entirely. Luke let out a long breath. Only with the sting gone did he realize how intense it had been.

“This isn’t too bad,” Magnus said. He tilted his head, peering at the wound. “Nasty poison, but not a dangerous one.”

Luke nodded, but he didn’t really care. He stared down at the blue energy pulsing over his skin and figured Valentine would be the death of him someday, one way or another. It was a sick comfort somehow.

Alec returned from the bathroom with fresh gauze and a roll of medical tape. He sat down on the coffee table behind Magnus, watching his magic crackle and fizz as it fought the poison. 

“Hm. This is like a little reunion, isn’t it?” Magnus said, quirking a smile. 

Alec laughed lightly, but Luke had to search his memory. After a second, there it was: The night he became Alpha. He remembered now, waking up in Magnus’s loft, screaming in pain. Telling Clary everything, every way he’d gone wrong. Alec there to check on him, and still there in the morning. “Yeah,” Luke said. He cast Alec a look. “I’m thinking now you didn’t stay all night just to take care of me.” 

“It was one of the reasons,” Alec insisted, a flush rising in his cheeks. Luke glanced at Magnus, who looked positively smug, smiling the sort of tight smile Luke remembered feeling a time or two. The ones you held close and small, like your body couldn’t handle that much joy if you let it all out. It looked good on him. Magnus looked good. He looked lighter and more at peace than Luke had ever seen him.

“I’m glad my near death could bring you two together,” he teased.

Magnus laughed, but Alec’s expression clouded. He fidgeted with the package of gauze in his hand and Luke cringed inwardly. He’d forgotten that, for all he didn’t know Magnus that well, he knew Alec even less. And Alec didn’t know him.

“Really, Alec, I’m happy for you. Both of you.” Luke jerked his chin Magnus’s way. “Magnus has been on his own long enough.”

But Alec didn’t look up and the darkness didn’t clear from his face. “Luke,” he said, still focused on the supplies in his hand. He spun the roll of medical tape. “I wanted to...I’m sorry. About Jocelyn.”

Luke inhaled sharply and turned away when Alec lifted his head. He stared at the marble bust against Magnus’s wall, but still saw the guilt and sorrow in Alec’s eyes. He looked haunted and Luke had managed to _forget_ that it had been Alec’s hand that had taken Jocelyn from him. He knew. Of course, he knew. But it had been the demon, not Alec. So, Luke had blamed the demon and put Alec out of his mind.

“I’m sorry they...” Alec continued. “I’m sorry we didn’t let you come to the rite of mourning. You should have been allowed to be there. That wasn’t—”

“I don’t blame you. For any of it,” Luke said, maybe more abruptly than he’d meant to, but he needed Alec to stop talking. “There’s a whole system in place that’s larger than any Lightwood. You can’t fix that.” He worked to soften his voice. “Don’t hold onto things you can’t control. Each of us in this room has caused a death he regrets. Probably more than one.”

Alec broke from Luke’s gaze to curiously glance at Magnus, who met his eyes in steady, silent confirmation. Distantly, Luke wondered if Alec had any clue what it meant to be with a high warlock, if he understood that no one became that powerful without a fight finding them every step of the way. He wondered if Alec had any clue how powerful Magnus Bane really was.

“I’m all done,” Magnus announced softly. He touched a hand to Alec’s shoulder as he rose to his feet. “How’s it feel?”

“Much better,” Luke answered. “Thank you, Magnus.”

Alec slid off the coffee table to his knees beside the couch. The gauze packet crinkled as he tore it open. 

“I can do that.” Luke reached for the gauze, but Alec kept it out of reach.

“I got it. It’s okay.”

Luke watched him, watched his downcast eyes and the hard set of his jaw as he smoothed the bandage over his wound. “I mean it, Alec,” he said. “I know it’s not easy, but you have to forgive yourself. No one can do that for you.”

“Okay.” Alec nodded just once. Then, in a lower voice, eyes on his task, he asked, “How do I do that?”

Luke thought of Alaric. He thought of the Shadowhunters and wolves and Seelies he’d known and lost last night. _Maia._ He thought of Maia, who thankfully wasn’t dead, but Luke had killed something there all the same. Trust, maybe some friendship and affection that could take years to grow back, if it ever did. He searched for the words, until finally he shook his head. “If I figure it out, you’ll be the first to know.”

Alec laughed lightly, but not because anything was funny. 

In the end, Alec Lightwood wasn’t much of a nurse, his fingers a bit clumsy as he tore off tape and secured the gauze, but the bandage held and whatever Magnus had done did wonders. Whatever poison Valentine had used was meant to cause him pain.

“You and—and Jocelyn were together for a long time, weren’t you?” Alec asked. He gathered up the packaging and knots of tape he’d mangled.

“We were.” Luke sat up carefully and grabbed his button-down from the arm of the sofa.

“Aldertree said Shadowhunters and Downworlders can never work,” Alec said. “Not in a relationship.”

“Did he?” 

“You didn’t tell me this.” Magnus tilted his head, interested.

Alec snorted a small laugh through his nose. “I was going to. We were kind of busy.”

That answer seemed to placate Magnus. He smiled wistfully and said no more. Luke shook his head fondly at them. “Seems like you didn’t take it to heart then,” he said. He stood, pulling his shirt up onto his shoulders. The wound protested, but it was a whimper, not a scream. 

“No, not for a second.”

“Good, ‘cause he’s wrong.” Luke buttoned his shirt carefully. “We had our arguments, but the things that didn’t work between me and Jocelyn had nothing to do with who _we_ were. We worked through our problems together. It was everything outside of us. Valentine, the Circle, the Clave, our families.”

Luke let out a breath. She had been beautiful. Those first hard years after Clary was born. Raising a baby in secret, a new mother completely cut off from her family, her friends. Hiding in a world she didn’t understand, with no resources and no idea what would come next. The sweet, smoky smell of baby powder permeated everything in that first little apartment they’d found, the one with the shower that dripped all night no matter how many times Luke tightened the valves. When the baby finally slept, the mother’s calm cooing stopped and Jocelyn would cry so much Luke wasn’t sure she’d ever stop. So, he’d held her and cried with her.

“We can do this,” she’d sobbed, clinging to him, face pressed to his chest. Through her tears, that was always what she said, a steady mantra, “We can do this. Luke, we’ll be okay. We’ll all be okay. We can do this.” He’d loved her for it. Loved someone who could despair and hope in the same breath, who had that core of strength that never bent, even when it sometimes should have. Walking through the loft’s front door on summer days, smelling fresh coffee and wet oil paints, finding Clary and Simon pretending the floor was lava while Jocelyn covered a canvas in bursts of color. Her auburn hair caught in the last glow of evening sunlight. For the space of a heartbeat, his world had been a masterpiece.

“Sometimes feels like we had half a life together,” he said. “Keeping everything a secret from Clary, hiding from everyone else…I wanted to make things more official. Once everything was out in the open, once we settled things with Valentine, I wanted to propose. There was so much we didn’t get to do.” He cleared his throat roughly and wiped at his eyes. _Jocelyn, my love, we’re not okay._ “But we were happy. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t be, too.”

Fixing his jacket on his shoulders, Luke looked at Magnus and Alec to find their heads lowered, both lost in more sober thoughts than he’d expected.

Alec was so young. Clary was young, Simon, Jace, Isabelle, all of them. Maia was so very young. As young as Luke had been when he’d found himself in a barn, bleeding out the life he’d been meant to have. They deserved a softer world, all of them, him and ancient Magnus Bane included. “It’s good you’re doing things the way you are,” he assured them. “I’m sure it’s not easy, but it’s better than hiding.”

Magnus looked up, his usual lightness returning in the sway of his shoulders, even if his smile didn’t fully reach his eyes. “Have you eaten? You should stay for dinner. Alec and I were just about to order in.”

“Nah. I need to get that medicine back to the pack. I’ve been gone too long already.”

“I could take it for you,” Alec offered quickly. “You look like you could use a night off.”

Luke gave him a sad smile. “Thanks, but no one there is going to appreciate seeing a Shadowhunter right now.”

Alec nodded, chastened, reminded. “Right.” 

Luke eyed them, scanning for subtle relief, but he didn’t find it. Instead, they seemed sincerely disappointed, like they wanted him to stay, and he wasn’t anyone’s Alpha, or father, or a detective on their case. He wasn’t really a Shadowhunter and he wasn’t really a Downworlder and he was no one’s parabatai. But still, Alec Lightwood and Magnus Bane wanted him to stay for dinner. Like friends. 

Luke shook his head in subtle disbelief. For once, the twisting ache in his heart felt good. He hesitated only a moment before asking, “How do you guys feel about teriyaki?”

________

Bottles clinked and shifted as Magnus returned them to their shelves.

“Where does this one go?” Alec asked, holding up a packet of yellow powder.

“On the top shelf. With the incendiaries.”

“This is incendiary?”

“Lots of things are, if you know what you’re doing.” Magnus pulled a rattling canister of dried Shax spleen from the shelf at his hip. “For example, if you mixed that with this, you have a smoke bomb. It smells terrible, but that can be useful in certain situations.”

“Good to know.” Alec laughed and turned away to carefully place the packet amongst the others on the top shelf.

This is what Magnus had been missing for centuries. As good as the sex was—and it really was _incredibly_ good—Magnus craved this. Alec in his space, a part of his life. Helping him tidy up and waiting for a friend to return with dinner. The small things, the simple things of a life together. He’d climbed out of bed today to see Alec’s dirty socks discarded on his priceless Turkish rug and couldn’t remember when he’d ever been this happy.

“You can talk to me, you know,” Alec said, squinting at the spine of one of Magnus’s books and looking for its spot in the library. “You can tell me things.”

Magnus glanced curiously over his shoulder as he put the demon spleen back where it belonged. “I know I can,” he said.

“The story Aldertree told me.” Alec slid the book into its place and crossed his arms, a little self-consciousness in the movement, a little nervousness. “I didn’t want to go into all of it with Luke here, but he—he told me about this werewolf he said he fell in love with. He killed her.”

Magnus paused and turned to him. Alec unfolded his arms and leaned one hand on the shelf beside him, absently rubbing at the black-lacquered wood as he spoke. 

“He said she couldn’t control herself and that—that it was part of her nature, but—I keep thinking about it and if he thinks that about her, then that’s what he’s going to see when something goes bad, isn’t it? He said her grief drove her mad, but maybe he was just seeing a wolf, not the person he loved. It was like he expected her to be violent, so I don’t...he said he had to kill her, but I don’t know if that’s true. I think...I think he killed her because that’s what we’re taught to do.”

Magnus listened tensely, watching him, and it felt oddly like waiting, utterly still, for a bird of prey to come close and alight on your outstretched hand. Watching a soldier raised to fear you realize that, between the two of you, he was the dangerous one.

Alec looked at him, brow furrowed, eyes dark and lost. Magnus shook his head to the question he saw there. “I don’t know. I don’t know what sort of man he is,” he said, even though he had centuries of reasons to believe Alec was right.

“He couldn’t have felt about her the way I feel about you.”

At that, Magnus smiled as some feeling seized through him, like a finger touching on a deep bruise. “I’m sure he didn’t.”

“I would never do that. I couldn’t, and—and I want you to be able to trust me. With everything. With everything you are.”

Magnus stood, pulse pounding, locked in place for a breath. “I do,” he said at last, fragile and so hopeful it hurt. He drank in the earnestness in Alec’s lovely eyes, even as he knew Alec couldn’t truly comprehend the enormity of what he was asking. “Alexander, it’s not that there’s anything I’m deliberately not telling you.” He crossed the small room to place a palm on Alec’s chest, warm and firm with that strong, awakening heart beneath. “I’ve been alive a very long time. I have so many stories, some happy, some not. We’ll get to them. Right now, I’m more interested in making new stories with you.”

The corner of Alec’s mouth lifted. “Okay,” he whispered, focus dropping helplessly to Magnus’s lips. “I can understand that.” His tense look broke open in a smile, lopsided and boyish. So loving and so yearning. “I just wish someone could tell me everything I don’t know.” He chuckled through the words, but their honesty still burned through, ragged and raw. “You know, about—about how to do this.” He waved a hand across the bare inches of space between them.

“I think you’re doing all right,” Magnus replied. If his voice was a little hoarse with emotion, Alec didn’t seem to mind. “But if you want, you could talk to Luke,” he said. “He’s been in both of our worlds.”

________

An hour or so later, Luke returned loaded with food from his favorite Asian-fusion restaurant in Brooklyn, flimsy bags stretched to nearly bursting with teriyaki, fried rice, and enough egg rolls to challenge even the appetites of an Alpha werewolf, a Shadowhunter, and a high warlock. As they set out the bounty on Magnus’s fine dining table, he told them about the call he’d heard from dispatch on the drive over, one of his fellow detectives requesting an autopsy on a duck found dead at a crime scene. “I tell you guys,” he said, “I wish him luck. I hope he quacks the case.”

Through laughter and mouthfuls of teriyaki, Alec shared the story of the time his sister Isabelle woke him up by shoving a pair of tiny lungs in his face, squealing about the cute little frog organs from her first amphibian post-mortem. This in turn reminded Magnus of a visit to Yoro, Honduras in 1971 for the yearly Rain of Fish, and they all giggled far more than they’d ever admit about the term “fishnado.”

And somehow, second by second, they each made a choice. 

Between one round of stories and the next, a silence would fall, eyes glancing as they sipped their drinks or bit down on one more egg roll. With each pause in the conversation came an opportunity: They could fill that silence with serious talk, with matters that needed discussing. They could sit together, three capable leaders, and try to solve the world’s problems...

Or Alec could tell one more story about Isabelle’s childhood fascination with innards, and Magnus could name-drop one more famous historical figure, to Alec and Luke’s amused, skeptical groans, and Luke could tell them both about the time he’d gone through a rough change and woken up naked in a convent. They could make new stories together. They could do that instead. Just for a night.

In the end, they didn’t talk about what Victor Aldertree had said, or about love, or Shadowhunters and Downworlders, or anything to do with the Institute, or the pack, or Brooklyn, or the whole of the Shadow World. Just for a night, they let the world turn without three of its soldiers. For just one night, New York, Brooklyn, and the Institute were on their own.

Because it turns out that healing has a flavor, too. And for one night, for Alec Lightwood, Magnus Bane, and Luke Garroway, healing tasted like teriyaki.


End file.
